Call for papers for ALARJ Vol 24, Issue 1, 2018

The Action Learning Action Research Association Inc (ALARA) invites you to submit a paper with a view to publication in our up-and-coming first issue for 2018. The issue will be a general issue (no special theme).

The deadline to upload your paper is 31 March 2018.

How to make a submission:

Please send all contributions in Microsoft Word format to our Open Journal Systems access portal: https://journal.alara.net.au/index.php/alarj

Unless you are an existing contributor, you will need to register as an author on the OJS site to upload your document and work through the four electronic pages of requirements to make your submission (this takes about 5 minutes). You will need to write your biography and abstract as part of this registration process (please do not send a separate biographical file).

On completing your registration and uploading your paper, ALARA’s Managing Editor or Issue Editor will contact you and you can track progress of your paper on the OJS page. Within two to three months you will be contacted by the Managing Editor with two critical reviews. You will then be invited to re-submit a final for publication consideration.

If you have been invited to contribute as a reviewer or guest editor you will also need to register as such on OJS.

If you have any difficulties or inquiries about submission or any other matters to do with ALARA publications contact the Managing Editor on editor@alaraassociation,org

For the full details of submitting to the ALAR Journal including formatting, please see the submission guidelines on ALARA’s web site: www.alarassociation.org/pages/publications/submission-guidelines

Submission guidelines summary:

Papers should between 3000 and 5000 words excluding reference lists. Please use APA referencing style. Our reviewers use the following criteria to provide critical feedback on your paper. The criteria are consistent with the Association’s principles of practice, and important for authors to consider:

Criterion 1:      How well are the paper and its focus both aimed at and/or grounded in the world of practice?

Criterion 2:      How well are the paper and/or its subject explicitly and actively participative: research with, for and by people rather than on people?

Criterion 3:      How well do the paper and/or its subject draw on a wide range of ways of knowing (including intuitive, experiential, presentational as well as conceptual) and link these appropriately to form theory of and in practices (praxis)?

Criterion 4:      How well does the paper address questions that are of significance to the flourishing of human community and the more-than-human world as related to the foreseeable future?

Criterion 5:      How well does the paper consider the ethics of research practice for this and multiple generations?

Criterion 6:      How well does the paper and/or its subject aim to leave some lasting capacity amongst those involved, encompassing first, second and third person perspectives? 

Criterion 7:      How well do the paper and its subject offer critical insights into and critical reflections on the research and inquiry process? 

Criterion 8:      How well does the paper openly acknowledge there are culturally distinctive approaches to Action Research and Action Learning and seek to make explicit their own assumptions about non-Western / Indigenous and Western approaches to Action Research and Action Learning?

Criterion 9:      How well does the paper engage the context of research with systemic thinking and practices?

Criterion 10:    How well do the paper and/or its subject progress AR and AL in the field (research, community, business, education or otherwise)?

Criterion 11:    How well is the paper written?

Journal submissions must be original and unpublished work suitable for an international audience and not under review by any other publisher or journal. No payment is associated with submissions. Copyright of published works remains with the author(s) shared equally with ALARA.

While ALARj promotes established practice and related discourse, ALARj also encourages unconventional approaches to reflecting on practice including poetry, artworks and other forms of creative expression that can in some instances progress the field more appropriately than academic forms of writing.

About the journal:

The Action Learning and Action Research Journal (ALARj) contains substantial articles, project reports, information about activities, creative works from the action research and action learning field, reflections on seminars and conferences, short articles related to the theory and practice of action learning, action research and process management, and reviews of recent publications.

ALARj also advertises practitioners’ services (conferences, consultancy services, workshops, products) for a fee.

The journal aims to be of the highest standard of writing from the field in order to extend the boundaries of theorisation of the practice as well as the boundaries of its application.

The journal aims to be accessible for both readers and contributors while not compromising the need for sophistication that complex situations require. We encourage experienced practitioners and scholars to contribute and will also introduce novice practitioners to the field where novice contributions are of a very high quality and innovative.

ALARj has a 30% rejection rate. Additionally we only receive articles that have been proofread, comply with the submission guidelines as identified on the journal’s website, and that also meet the criteria that the reviewers use. The criteria are listed above and also available on the journal website. We are unlikely to publish an article that describes a project simply because its methodology is drawn from our field.

The intention of the journal is to provide high quality works for practitioners and funding bodies to refer to in the commissioning of works, and the progression of and inclusion of action research and action learning concepts and practices in policy, culture and operations.

AlARj has a substantial international panel of experienced action research and action learning scholars and practitioners who offer both double blind and transparent reviews at the request of the author.

The journal is published electronically on the OJS website.

EBSCO and Informit also publish the journal commercially for worldwide access, and pdf or printed versions can be purchased from Sydney University Press at https://sup-estore.sydney.edu.au/jspcart/cart/Category.jsp?nParentID=42

If you are an author, a reviewer, guest editor or a member of ALARA, you will have limited or in the case of members, full access to journal articles through OJS.